Exclusive Ukraine increased imports of flat products by 28.8% y/y in January-March

Coated flat products account for more than 40% of imports

In January-March 2025, 268.25 thousand tons of flat products were supplied to the Ukrainian market, up 28.8% compared to the same period in 2024. Imports increased by 8.3% quarter-on-quarter. This is according to GMK Center’s calculations based on data from the State Customs Service.

Coated flat products (HS 7210) accounted for more than 40% of imports, amounting to 110.79 thousand tons, up 27.1% y/y. The main suppliers of products during the quarter were Turkey – 58.16 thousand tons, Poland – 15 thousand tons, and Slovakia – 13.38 thousand tons.

Hot-rolled flat products (HS 7208) accounted for another 36.9% of supplies, or 98.97 thousand tons (+21.2% y/y). Turkey is the key source of supply of these products, accounting for 82.71 thousand tons. Another 7.27 thousand tons were imported from China and 3.14 thousand tons from Italy.

Also, in January-March, 32.87 thousand tons of flat cold-rolled products were imported (HS 7209), which is 2.3 times more than in the previous year. Turkey imported 19.82 thousand tons of the product, China – 11.7 thousand tons, Slovakia – 1.07 thousand tons.

In March, Ukrainian consumers imported 97.06 thousand tons of flat products, up 54.8% y/y and 18.2% m/m. Shipments of coated flat products amounted to 43.17 thousand tons (+59.4% y/y, +15.3% m/m), flat hot-rolled products – 35.1 thousand tons (+43.2% y/y, +28.8% m/m), and flat cold-rolled products – 8.65 thousand tons (+131.8% y/y, -7.7% m/m).

The cost of imports of flat products increased by 16.8% y/y – to $271.58 million in Q1, and by 46.6% y/y and 21% m/m in March – to $101.8 million.

As GMK Center reported earlier, in 2024, 983.49 thousand tons of flat products were supplied to the Ukrainian market, up 8.3% compared to 2023.

Coated flat products accounted for about half of the imports – 468.61 thousand tons (+7% y/y). Hot-rolled flat products accounted for another 34.7% of supplies, or 341.21 thousand tons (+8.7% y/y), and cold-rolled flat products for 79.31 thousand tons (-0.9% y/y).

In 2024, the cost of importing flat products increased by 5% y/y – to $1.08 billion.